Arthur.Tatnall, Senior Lecturer, Victoria University , PO Box 14428, Melbourne City, MC 8001, Victoria, ArthurTatnall@vu.edu.au
The proportion of older people will increase dramatically over the
next 25 years. There are several different definitions of what constitutes
an ‘older person’ but for the purposes of this paper we will define olderpeople
as those of fifty-five years of age and over, regardless of whether they
are still in the full-time workforce. Globally the importance of older
people is demonstrated by their large numbers: in 1999 world statistics
showed 578 million people over the age of 60 (Scott 1999). Between 1946
and 1998 the proportion of people over 65 in Australia increased from 8%
to 12% (to 2.3 million people). By 2025 this figure will be 17.2% (around
4 million) and by 2051 this proportion will increase to 24% (6 million)(Scott
1999).
The Internet, a communication and informational access technology, has the potential to improve the older person’s lifestyle (Fozard 2000). The Australian Federal Government has demonstrated a commitment to older Australians by releasing a number of issues papers which “impact on older people’s capacity to remain active and independent” (Bishop 2000). A key feature of these papers is an emphasis on communication, in particular through the Internet which enables older people to communicate via e-mail with family and friends, to access information and to purchase goods. This emphasis is also consistent with literature sourced from overseas (Franklin 1997;Coulson 2000). The use of e-mail can also reduce social isolation for thoseolder people with reduced mobility or living in remote or rural areas (Parekh1998, Bishop 2000).
This paper sets out a research approach to investigating how older people
adopt, or fail to adopt Web sites such as the GreyPath Village portal.Our
research is on-going, and this paper does not set out to demonstrate that
this Web site attracts large numbers of older people at this time– further
research will be necessary to establish this. What the paper does do is
to set out the diffusion of innovations framework in which this on-going
research is being conducted. We have chosen a framework of this type rather
than one involving another approach such as innovation translation (Tatnall
and Lepa 2001) as we are investigating overall issues in technology adoption
rather than how particular individuals relate to this technology.
Historically, Lynch (1998) suggests, portals developed out of search
engine sites such as Yahoo!, Excite, and Lycos which can now be classified
as first-generation portals. These sites, however, quickly evolved intosites
providing additional services such as e-mail, stock quotes, news,and community
building rather than just search capabilities (Rao 2001).
The concept of the GreyPath portal was created by Ray Lewis, a 66 year older senior. Lewis commenced his working life in 1966 as a RAAF officer and since then has held many top ranking executive positions such as Director and Chairman in Australian companies. Currently, as chairman, he heads Edion Pty Ltd, a computer software solutions company. At the age of 65 he felt that he could make a contribution to society by looking after his own demographic: the community of older people. He perceived a need for an Internet portal dedicated to Australian seniors. As a consequence he has developed and manages the GreyPath portal (Lewis 2002).
Lewis describes GreyPath as follows: “GreyPath is a uniquely styled, demographically ‘inclusive’, user friendly, seniors web portal and virtual community, that has been designed first and foremost to empower seniors and enrich the quality of their lives. It has an ability to encourage site loyalty, identification with, and participation, from its constituency”(Lewis 2002). However as the developmental and on-going maintenance costs for GreyPath have been considerable, Lewis’s ultimate aim, along with providing a service to seniors, is to make GreyPath a successful commercial venture.
GreyPath has three major components: firstly, there are links which are informational, or categories that pertain to the ‘mind’ (Lewis 2002). These include finance, legal, health, education, services, travel, artand culture, and entertainment. The second group are more everyday needs type categories which Lewis describes as pertaining to the ‘heart’ such as relationships, news and the weather. The third major component of the portal is the Village, an innovative virtual community where older people can chat and communicate with each other anonymously about common interests.
Lewis (2002) suggests that the Village is a “world’s first with a carefully
specified and atmospherically crafted Virtual 3D community for seniors.
It’s clearly more attractive to chat in, for example, than any other site
anywhere in the world, despite many being far more sophisticated. Its advantage
is simplicity (user friendliness), naturalized visual environment, and
clear potential for further development”.
There are a number of alternative names for virtual communities such as ‘communities of interest’ (Hagel and Armstrong 1997) and ‘Internet cultures’ (Jones 1995). From an on-line marketing perspective Muniz (1997) calls them ‘brand communities’ and Kozinets (1998) uses theterm ‘virtual communities of consumption’.
Barnatt (1998) suggests that there are two categories of virtual community:off-line and on-line. Both categories of virtual community share common interests and bonds but on-line, Internet-based virtual communities today “allow a wide range of global individuals to argue, share information, make friends, and undertake economic exchanges, in a flexible and socially-compelling common on-line arena”. In contrast, members of an off-line virtual community do not communicate directly with one another but are reliant on ‘broadcast’ mediums such as newspapers, TV and radio to sustain their common interests or bonds.
As the group of Australian older people, who use the GreyPath Village site chat facilities, share a common bond of ageing, they can be considered to form an on-line virtual community. These on-line relationships “can be every bit as strong and permanent as their ‘real world’ counterparts ”Matathia (1998 :156). Individuals in this group, prior to accessing the Internet, would have been classified as part of the off-line communityof older Australian people.
Have these older people, who are now accessing the GreyPath Village,adopted an innovation? Rogers (1995 :11) defines an innovation as an “idea, practice, or object that is perceived as new by an individual or other unit of adoption.” To be considered or classified as an innovation, theidea can either be objectively new to all humanity in chronological terms or it can simply be new to the individual concerned. As GreyPath Villagecan be considered chronologically new to all humanity (Lewis 2002) then the older people who access this virtual community facility can be considered to be adopting an innovation.
The GreyPath portal, a dedicated older person Web site, provides informational links, entertainment-type links and also a link to the GreyPath Village Lyceum where older person visitors use the chat facilities to form a virtual community.
The Village at GreyPath, through its Internet chat rooms, creates a virtual community of older people. The Village has seven chat rooms (see Fig 1): Town Hall, Megs Café, Murphy’s Pub, the Public Library,St. Isadores, The Lyceum and The Village Health Centre. In this paper the authors will concentrate on the innovative Lyceum section of the Village.This Village has been conceived and designed with engaging interactive activities which will firstly attract older people to the GreyPath portal and then help to instil and promote confidence and familiarity as well as alleviate feelings of insecurity or computer phobia in Internet usage (Lewis 2002).
Figure 1 The GreyPath Village
Figure 2 The Village Lyceum
In the remainder of this paper we will consider the GreyPath Village
Lyceum as an innovation, and will proceed to examine the adoption of this
innovation by older people using the theory of innovation diffusion.
In diffusion theory the existence of an innovation is seen to cause uncertainty in the minds of potential adopters (Berlyne 1962) and uncertainty implies a lack of predictability and of information. Uncertainty can be considered as the degree to which a number of alternatives are perceived in relation to the occurrence of some event, along with the relative probabilities of each of these alternatives occurring. Diffusion is considered to be an information exchange process amongst members of a communicating social network driven by the need to reduce uncertainty (Rogers 1995). Those involved in considering adoption of the innovation are motivated to seek information to reduce this uncertainty (Rogers 1995).
The new ideas upon which an innovation is based are communicated overtime,
through various types of communication channels, among the members of a
social system. Thus, there are four main elements of innovation diffusion:
characteristic of the innovation itself, the nature of the communication
channels, the passage of time, and the social system through which the
innovation diffuses (Rogers 1995).
· Relative advantage - the degree to which an innovation is perceived as better than the idea it supersedes. Relative advantage is often expressed in terms of economic profitability, social prestige, orother similar benefits. Rogers (1995) contends that an innovation’s relativeadvantage is positively correlated with its rate of adoption.
· Compatibility - the degree to which an innovation is perceived by potential adopters as being consistent with their existing values and past experiences. Compatibility with what is already in place makes the new idea seem less uncertain, more familiar, and helps to give it meaning. Rogers (1995) claims that the perceived compatibility of an innovation is positively related to its rate of adoption.
· Complexity - the degree to which an innovation is perceived as difficult to understand and use. Rogers claims that the more complex the innovation, the less likely it is to be quickly adopted.
· Trialability - the degree to which a particular innovation may be subjected to limited experimentation. Rogers’ research suggests that if a potential adopter is able to ‘play’ with the innovation before being faced with an adoption decision, then adoption is more likely.
· Observability. The more the results of an innovation are visible to others, the more likely the innovation is to be adopted.
Attributes of the potential adopter are also seen as an important consideration in the adoption of an innovation. Rogers (1995) maintains that these attributes include social status, level of education, degree of cosmopolitanism and amount of innovativeness.
Early diffusion research was based on a linear model of communicationwhere
the innovation is passed directly from a sender to a receiver. In this
case the innovation was either adopted as proposed or else it wasnot adopted
at all. In the 1970s, researchers began to study the concept of re-invention
of innovations (Rogers 1995). In this sense, re-invention refers to: “...
the degree to which an innovation is changed or modified by a user in the
process of its adoption and implementation” (Rogers 1995:17). Rogers suggests
that, in almost all cases, a considerable degree of re-invention does occur
and so rather than a linear model of communication, a convergence model
would perhaps be more appropriate.
In common with many other earlier researchers Rogers (1995) has foundthat
different individuals in a social system do not necessarily adoptan innovation
at the same time. Borrowing from the work of Deutschmann and Fals Borda
(Deutschmann 1962) he proposes that adopters can be classifiedin their
degree of ‘innovativeness’ into five categories as: innovators, early adopters,
early majority, late majority and laggards, and that if the number of individuals
adopting a new idea is plotted over time it usually follows a normal, bell-shaped
curve.
What makes older people return to GreyPath Village? How do they communicate the news of this new innovation to other older people? To answer these questions we will use the diffusion of innovation framework (Rogers 1995), to examine the GreyPath Village Lyceum, a major component of the GreypathWeb portal.
In considering the GreyPath Village Lyceum as an innovation we will
begin by looking at its characteristics and how they might compare to the
characteristics of alternatives, but before we can do this we must ask
the question: what are the alternatives that the Village Lyceum seeks tosupplement
and replace? One feature of the Lyceum is its chat room. This communication
method competes with meeting physically at clubs orother social or family
events, telephone conversations, letter writing and electronic mail. The
Lyceum also has the Lookart virtual gallery. An alternative to this exists
in actually visiting the various art galleries that exist in most Australian
cities. In the sections that follow we will compare the characteristics
of the Lyceum chat room and Lookart gallery with these alternatives to
explain why older people may be adopting this innovation. In the interests
of space, in this paper we will concentrate on Rogers’ main elements of
innovation diffusion: characteristics of the innovation itself, and mention
the other elements only briefly.
Lewis (2002) suggests that the main target audience for GreyPath is Australians and New Zealanders. The GreyPath site has been developed with the intention of attracting older females who are keen to “socialise more as they age.” Older retired males are also targeted, and Lewis classifies those who have just retired as “changing state males” as they have suddenly lost, to a large extent, their main means of socialisation through the workplace and are now looking for more relationships. “They are suddenly discovering outside relationships.”
Word of mouth can be a very important medium. For instance, the authors of this paper have relayed information about the GreyPath site to work colleagues who have in turn passed on the information to their older parents. Lewis notes that communication about his site is permeating through tothe Australian older person community with more visitors each month.
Another research problem encountered was what can we say about people
accessing the Village Lyceum in particular rather than other elements ofthe
GreyPath portal site? Some people may visit the portal to get some news
and information and not access the Village. The statistics show only access
to the overall site and not to its component parts. Further research is
required to ascertain the number of people who go on to access the Village
Lyceum, and how many of these are indeed older people. Further research
will also be needed to identify the people using the site to see if they
are indeed older people. This will probably be done in the form of interviews
and surveys. It will also be interesting to find out if those using the
site have any similarities in their backgrounds, such as level of education
or previous employment.
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